The woman came from the bedside occasionally, but always with the same report: Esmeralda was still unconscious.
The night passed; the dawn broke with exquisite beauty, and the sun shone upon the white and haggard faces of the two men watching and waiting with feverish and almost intolerable anxiety. Presently they saw a party riding up the hill at a furious gallop; they were Norman, the doctor, and Mother Melinda.
The doctor turned the men out, and went with Mother Melinda to the bedside. Trafford withdrew to a little distance from the hut, and sat with his face hidden in his hands, and Norman and Varley leaned against a tree and waited silently for a time. Then Norman said, with difficulty, as if there were a lump in his throat:
“It’s all my fault. If I had told you everything the night I arrived, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Varley said nothing. He felt that if Esmeralda were to die, it mattered little whose fault it was; the burden of her death would lie upon his—Varley’s—soul forever.
After what seemed an interminable time, filled up with a suspense beyond the power of words to describe, the door of the hut opened and the doctor came out. The three men started forward simultaneously. The doctor addressed Varley.
“She is still unconscious,” he said. “Keep up your heart, Varley; the wound isn’t a mortal one. It isn’t the wound I’m afraid of; it’s the shock to the system, and what has gone before. She was dead beat when you—when this happened to her. She’d gone through enough to knock up a strong man, let alone a woman, and she’s just exhausted and played out.” He looked at Trafford as he said this, and Trafford turned aside and stifled a groan. “You’re her husband, sir, Lord Druce tells me. You’d better stay here. You, Varley, and Lord Druce, had better get back to Three Star; I don’t want a crowd round her, and you can do no good. I’ll give you a list of things I want from the camp; you can send them by Taffy, in the spring-cart. I shall move her down to the camp as soon as she’s fit.”
“She will recover?” exclaimed Norman, eagerly.
“I didn’t say that, young man,” said the doctor, pursing his lips. “We shall see. If you think it’s an easy case you make a very great mistake; as I said, I haven’t got to fight the wound alone; there’s something behind that.”
Varley and Norman went toward their horses, which Simon, before he left, had carefully tethered. Half-way, Varley paused and looked round at Trafford, who was following the doctor to the hut. Trafford stopped and waited, and the two men looked steadily at each other.